


Air's Getting Thin, But I'm Trying, I'm Breathing In

by imagined_melody



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Relapsing, mentions of bipolar disorder, post-4x12
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:27:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagined_melody/pseuds/imagined_melody
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian's been behaving strangely lately. Neither he nor Mickey wants to acknowledge the reason why. Set several months after the events of 4x12. Written for Gallavich Week Day 4, for the "hurt/comfort" theme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Air's Getting Thin, But I'm Trying, I'm Breathing In

**Author's Note:**

> My submissions haven't been as good this year as they were last year. Sorry guys. My head's not really in the game this week. :( Title taken from Joshua Radin's song "The Fear You Won't Fall," which is pretty much a perfect Gallavich song. I've been waiting to use this lyric as a title for an Ian/Mickey fic for ages now!

“Holy FUCK.”

It was a rare night that Ian got home from work before Mickey, so the sight of Gallagher’s fiery hair and glittery outfit in his peripheral vision had been enough of a surprise when Mickey came through the door. But what really caught his attention was the next thing he noticed: Ian was sitting at the kitchen table, a dishcloth pressed up to his face, discolored scarlet with blood.

“What the fuck did you do?!”

Ian let him grab the cloth out of his hands, staying still while Mickey inspected the skin underneath with narrowed eyes. His cheekbone was mottled with a dark bruise, and there was a cut above his nose that was still trickling blood. It must look bad, because Mickey’s face was taking on that tight quality that Ian associated with somebody getting the shit kicked out of them. “Got in a fight,” he said.

“I can fucking see that,” Mickey responded with hardly a pause. “What the hell for?”

Ian’s mind was buzzing, like it had when he’d taken party drugs in his early days at the club, except he was pretty sure he’d been sober all night. He struggled to retrace the events of the evening through the blur of his thoughts, and came up empty. “Dunno,” he said. “There was another guy at the club. Tried to take some of my tips.”

“So, what, you stopped him with your face?” Mickey tipped his head back to see the bruising better in the dim light. A sudden flash of annoyance went through Ian, and he jerked his chin away. Mickey frowned. “I do something wrong, Firecrotch?”

“I just—I can’t fucking do this right now,” Ian growled, suddenly overwhelmed with the impulse to get out from under Mickey’s scrutiny. He stood up, and was halfway to the doorway into the living room when Mickey’s voice, somewhere between confused and pissed off, came from behind him.

“Can’t do what right now? Bandage up your face? Answer my fucking questions?” He heard Mickey approach, and braced himself for a hand on his arm or shoulder, muscles already coiling in preparation to shake the other man off. But Mickey didn’t touch him. “Ian, what’s going on with you?”

“I can’t—“ Ian stopped, then began pacing, rubbing his hand frantically over his face. “I can’t _think_ , OK?” His head felt like it was spinning, everything all wound up tight like a trip wire. “I’m just tired, I guess. Long night. I’m going to bed.” 

He did feel exhausted in fact—the kind of exhaustion that slowly spreads into your bones, the kind that sleep doesn’t even fix. But it wasn’t because he was _just tired_ , and Mickey knew that as well as he did. There was a reason Ian had been so erratic the past few days, and both of them knew exactly what it was.

“Ian.” Mickey sounded concerned. Ian became vaguely aware that he was shaking. Panic curled its tendrils into him, and he took a shuddering breath to fight it back.

“I don’t want this to happen again,” Ian finally admitted in a weak voice. “I just want to make it go away. I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

Mickey’s heart wrenched a little in sympathy. “Shit, Gallagher,” he breathed, finally bridging the distance between them. This time, Ian made no move to break free from the hand that settled at the join of his neck and shoulder. “What’d that doc say, when Fiona took you to see him? Said you need sleep, right? Sometimes it can get worse if you don’t get enough sleep?”

“Yeah,” Ian said slowly, his head feeling fuzzy around the edges. “He said sleep, and, uh…writing stuff down if I don’t want to talk to people, and doing healthy stuff. Exercise, and no alcohol or caffeine or shit like that.”

“OK,” Mickey said decisively, his voice only wavering a little bit. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We can fight it, even without the meds.” They’d known from the beginning that there wouldn’t be any money for medication or therapy, not with Mickey barely breaking even from the earnings at the Alibi and Ian essentially working for tips each night at the club. For a while they’d gotten some pills from V, but something was fucked up with the dosage or the type, and they hadn’t agreed with Ian. He’d decided not to take anything else until they could afford to see a doctor and get a prescription that had a better chance of working. And aside from the occasional visit to a free support group at the clinic, therapy wasn’t in the cards either. All of the low-cost therapists they’d tried in the area had been fairly shitty and unhelpful. So that would have to wait until they were better off, too.

“I’m so fucking tired of fighting,” Ian sighed. His face tipped downwards, half in fatigue and half in defeat, forehead resting against the top of Mickey’s head. He winced at the pressure on the cuts and bruises decorating his face.

Mickey reached up a hand to press his full palm against the back of Ian’s head. “I know, man,” he said quietly. “But you’re not fighting alone, yeah?” He left just long enough of a pause before adding, “Pretty sure Mandy’s on your side, at least.”

The joke surprised a laugh out of Ian, sudden and harsh but genuine. “Fuck off,” he muttered—but a smile crept onto his face anyway, and a small portion of the tension in his chest loosened.

Mickey chuckled and gave the back of Ian’s head one last gentle squeeze before pulling back. “Come on, man,” he said as they moved toward the room they shared. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”


End file.
